Death at the Crossroads (14 page)

“A kappa? How big would a kappa have to be to leave tracks like this?”

“Maybe they have big feet.”

“But what is it?”

“The tracks come from the forest, where the pine needles hide them. It went to the spring for a drink, then it turned around and returned to the forest. See! Right here. The tracks fade out as it went back on hard ground.”

“Look, here comes Boss Kuemon. Maybe he’ll know what this is.”

Kuemon approached the knot of men and said, “What’s all this foolishness? Are you letting a baby-faced boy spook you? First the woman and now the boy. I’ve never seen such a bunch of weak-minded baka!”

“But look! Hachiro didn’t imagine the tracks. They’re still here.”

Kuemon walked up to the spring and stared down at the tracks. He stared for a long time, the rest of the men waiting for his judgment. Finally, one of the braver bandits prompted, “Well?”

Tearing his eyes away from the tracks, Kuemon stuck out his chest and said, “It must be some kind of trick. Or maybe a freak accident of some kind. They just look like tracks. They couldn’t be real.” He glared at his men. “If one of you is making some kind of joke with these tracks, I’ll cut your heart out! Tell me now, before I really get mad! Did one of you do this?”

“No.”

“No, Boss.”

“It’s not one of us. They look real.”

“We were all with you. It couldn’t be a trick.”

Kuemon looked at the faces of his men, trying to detect a guilty party. They were all hardened men, however, and used to lying. Still, Kuemon could see nothing in their faces except questions and fear. Curse that woman, and now this boy.

“Well, whatever it is, I’m not going to let a few tracks in the mud bother me. Hachiro! Pick up the bucket you dropped and fetch the water. We still have to make the evening’s rice.” Kuemon straightened his shoulders and strutted back to the camp. It bothered him that none of the men immediately followed. They wanted to stay by the spring, staring at the tracks.

In the hills above the camp, Kaze saw the men rushing to the spring. He settled back into a comfortable spot at the foot of two large trees. He didn’t have to sneak down to the spring to see what was happening. He knew the effect of the dragon tracks would be as great as when he and the boys first saw them in the snow, so many years ago.

In the bandit camp, the men were silent and sullen. Kuemon didn’t like it, and after dinner he decided to give the men courage through drink. “Hachiro! Bring out some
shochu
from my hut,” he ordered. “Open a barrel of sake, too!”

The men, sitting around a campfire after their evening meal, looked up in anticipation at Kuemon’s order. Shochu was a fiery liquor produced by peasants.

“What’s the occasion, Boss?” one asked.

Kuemon laughed. “I’ve decided to have a party. It isn’t every day we see the footprints of ghosts or dragons.” He raised his hands high into the air, making claws with his fingers. On his face he put on a grimace worthy of a
kabuki
actor. “I’m the ghostly creature,” he intoned as he made his way around the campfire, provoking nervous laughter from the men. “I don’t know what I am, but I must be
pretty scary to have such big feet! Maybe I’m a ghost. Maybe I’m a kappa. Maybe I’m a demon. Maybe I’m just a stupid bunch of tracks designed to scare old women and weak boys! Boo!”

The tension of the men dissolved in laughter. Kuemon, meeting success, started an impromptu dance, scampering around the fire saying “Boo!” at the men. Soon other men were joining him, striking twisted poses and making blood-curdling shrieks.

Hachiro broke open several jugs of shochu. He poured the contents into cups and handed them around. Then he took a barrel of sake out and broke it open and poured some of its contents into an old metal pot. Instead of putting the pot into hot water, he simply put it over the fire to warm up. In a few minutes he was handing Kuemon a square wooden box that acted as a cup, filled with sake. Kuemon drained the sake in one long drink and demanded more from Hachiro before the others could be served.

“Put more wood on the fire!” Kuemon demanded. “Let’s build the fire large to keep away all the spirits and ghosts and demons. Boo!”

The dry wood was piled on, and the fire crackled and hissed as sparks flew up into the night. The shimmering orange light of the fire cast weird flickering shadows that added to the demon imitations of Kuemon and the others.

Most of the men were up and dancing around the fire, holding cups of shochu or wooden boxes of sake in one hand and clawing at the air with the other. All were laughing and making scary sounds.

“Booo! Booo! Watch out ghosts! I can be as scary as you!”

“Look at me! I’m a demon, a scary demon!”

“Ooooh! Ooooh! Watch out for me. Ooooh! I’m a wailing demon.”

“You sound more like a woman having sex! Come here, little demon, I have something for you!” The man crudely grabbed his crotch.

Instead of taking offense, the wailing demon sidled up to the taunter and said, “Oh yes! I’m here for you, you big hunk of man. But wait, what’s that tiny thing you’re holding in your hand? Surely
you don’t think that small thing will part my jade gates, do you? Why that thing wouldn’t fill up a female rabbit! Perhaps I should turn around so you can treat me like a young boy?” He faced away from the fire, bent forward, flipped up the back of his kimono, and exposed his loincloth-covered buttocks to the man. The rest of the group started laughing uproariously.

Encouraged, the wailing demon pushed his rear out even further and said, “Yes, I’m sure you will like this best. But I still can’t feel anything. Are you so small that … ?” The man’s voice trailed off and he abruptly stood up, staring into the forest away from the campfire. The group of half-drunk bandits was still laughing ebulliently, and the object of the joke came up to the wailing demon and gave him a rough shove. The wailing demon staggered forward, but instead of getting mad he put up his hand and hissed, “Look!”

One by one, the bandits stared into the darkened forest to see what the wailing demon was staring at. And one by one, the bandits stopped laughing.

High in the trees the bandits could see a ghostly apparition flitting from treetop to treetop. Even in the darkness of the forest, it could be seen by the starlight. It moved with amazing speed, darting from one location to the next. Its movements were accompanied by a swishing sound that added an aural element to the visual speed.

“What’s that?” one man said in a low voice.

Boss Kuemon came from around the fire to get a closer look. “Have any of you ever seen anything like that before?”

The men shook their heads no or murmured a negative.

The white presence suddenly dove to the ground and disappeared.

“Get my sword,” Kuemon growled. No one moved. All the men were transfixed, waiting to see if the apparition would reappear.

“Get my sword!” Kuemon shouted. “And you men get your weapons and follow me. I want to get a closer look at that thing.”

Still the men didn’t move. Kuemon walked up to some and started kicking and cuffing them, knocking them out of their fear-induced
stupor. Hachiro brought Kuemon’s sword, and a few of the other men grabbed swords and spears, but others, although they grabbed weapons, could not be induced to leave the safety of the fire, no matter how many blows Kuemon rained down on them.

Exasperated and angry, Kuemon finally led the men who would follow him into the woods, seeking out the white presence. After a search of more than an hour, the men returned to the glow of the fire. They gathered around, looking at each other’s faces, each not daring to speculate about the strange events of the afternoon and evening or what their fruitless search meant.

“Well, it’s probably a trick of the vision,” Kuemon said. A few of the men glanced in his direction, but no one would make eye contact, and no one agreed. “Sometimes the eyes play tricks on you,” Kuemon continued. “Like mistaking those impressions in the mud for footprints. They were probably—”

“BLOOD!” A deep, ghostly voice echoed out from the forest. The men were galvanized, jolted to a state of taut alertness as they peered into the dark trees. They clutched their weapons in a tight grip and edged closer to the sheltering light of the fire.

“I WANT BLOOD!” The voice came from the darkest part of the forest that surrounded the bandit camp. It boomed out of the darkness with a resonance that was unearthly.

“Come here!” Kuemon hissed. “Form a defensive line! Stay alert. Be ready for an attack at any moment.”

From deep in the darkness, Kaze watched the effect of his cry for blood with satisfaction. The bandits were all on the alert now, their nerves frayed and near the breaking point. They would probably stay alert most of the night. Even if they didn’t, they would be sleeping in shifts, jumpy and watchful. Kaze smiled.

He untied the piece of white gauze he had attached to the end of a long, thin piece of bamboo. By running through the trees and whipping the bamboo back and forth, he had created the ghostly apparition the bandits had searched for.

Then he picked up the fat, hollowed-out tube of bamboo that he had used as a megaphone when crying for blood. The megaphone had given his voice just the right touch of ghostly reverberation.

He hauled the evidence of his manufactured ghosts with him to a safe, secluded spot in the forest. There he had previously stored the gnarled tree branch, carefully chosen and shaped, that formed a large claw. Tied to the branch was a long piece of bamboo, so Kaze could stand at some distance and make tracks in the soft mud, creating the dragon prints that so frightened both the bandits and a group of young boys. Fluffing up a bed of fragrant pine needles, he snuggled down into a satisfied sleep.

T
he next morning, Kaze climbed a tree to observe the camp from a safe distance. He could see the men in the camp standing around the burnt-out campfire from the night before, arguing. From a distance they looked like
bunraku
puppets playing out a scene in pantomime. Kaze couldn’t hear what was being said, but he didn’t need to.

The man he took to be Boss Kuemon was haranguing the other bandits. He had a sword in one hand, and he was marching up and down like a general trying to instill courage into reluctant troops. He would stop occasionally to point to the woods where Kaze had performed his ghostly tricks the night before. Kuemon started marching in that direction, but then stopped when he noticed none of the men were following him.

He returned to the men and started his speech again. Finally, after much cajoling, first one, then a second, then a third and a fourth man joined Kuemon. No amount of hand waving and fist shaking could make the others join in the search of the woods. Shouting over his shoulder as he marched into the woods followed by the four men, Kuemon finally started the search.

The remaining men stood around looking at each other for several
minutes. First one, then the next, started talking and pointing to the woods. Then, as if by general agreement, the men ran into the camp, grabbed as much as they could carry, and scattered into the forest in directions away from the searchers. The only one left in the camp was the young boy that Kaze had spared in his encounter with the bandits on the road, the same youth that obligingly fell asleep while on sentry duty. Kaze laughed out loud and settled into a comfortable position on the tree limb to await further developments.

Kuemon conducted a thorough search of the woods, and it was well over an hour before he returned with his four remaining followers. From his vantage point in the trees, Kaze watched as Kuemon exploded like fireworks shot into the night sky to mark a summer festival. Kuemon started by knocking the youth to the ground, then he tore through the camp, discovering what was missing, then he ran back to the boy, who had just picked himself up, and knocked him down again. With a shaking arm, the boy pointed in the direction the other men had run, and Kuemon and the other four ran off in that direction.

Kaze started climbing down the tree, happy with the results of his actions. With ten or twelve men, it would be a suicide attack, in which the best result would be the loss of the leader. Five was possible. The five bandits would return upset and tired from their long night, the fruitless search of the woods, and now the chase after their erstwhile comrades. And Kaze would be ready.

Back in the camp, Hachiro picked himself off the ground and sat for a moment with his head in his hands. Kuemon’s blows had set his ears ringing. When the other men looted the camp and ran in fear, Hachiro had been tempted to join. Yet his fear of Boss Kuemon was greater than any fear of the supernatural, and he had waited. With the look of fury in Boss Kuemon’s face, he was glad he did.

Hachiro went and picked up a spear. Kuemon told him to guard the camp against man or demon. Kuemon had punctuated his order with a threat to cut out Hachiro’s privates and feed them to the
demon if Hachiro was not alert and on guard when he returned. The very thought of the threat made Hachiro squirm.

After Hachiro’s headache subsided, he realized the source of the discomfort in his belly was actually a call of nature, not the threat from Boss Kuemon. Hachiro went and picked up a handful of leaves for wiping, then made his way into the part of the woods the bandits used as a latrine. Although his need was becoming pressing, Hachiro entered the woods carefully, looking at every tree and bush to make sure some dreadful creature wasn’t lurking.

Finally, finding a spot he thought to be safe, Hachiro hitched up his kimono and undid his loincloth. Then he gathered the skirts of the kimono around his waist and squatted down, the spear resting across his knees.

He had just started doing his business when he felt something tickle the back of his neck. He flicked his hand backward to chase away whatever insect was bothering him, but his hand banged against the flat of a sword blade. With a start, Hachiro tried to stand up and grab at his spear. Before he could do so, the spear was kicked out of his lap by a sandaled foot, and a hand on his shoulder forced him back into a squat. “You might as well finish what you started,” a husky voice said from behind him. “It will be a long wait for your Boss to come back.”

Later that day Kuemon wished he had met a demon. It would take a fight with a demon to drain the anger out of him. He did not catch up to the men who took the cash and other possessions from his camp. True, the bulk of his treasure was still hidden in his hut, but it galled him that the miserable worms, who knew nothing of banditry until Kuemon took them under his tutelage, had stolen from him.

His remaining men were dirty and exhausted from the fruitless chase and the search that morning, but they knew better than to complain during the long walk back to the camp. Every scowl, every snort, every curse he made let the men know that this was not the afternoon to complain about anything to the Boss.

The afternoon was almost ended and the red sun was directly in his eyes when Kuemon returned to the camp. Because of the glare of the sun, he couldn’t immediately see who was in the camp as he approached it.

There was a figure standing in the sun with a drawn sword. At first Kuemon thought it was the boy he had set to guard the camp, but as he grew closer he realized that the figure before him was too husky and mature to be the kid. His steps slowed, then he stopped.

His weary men, seeing Kuemon stop, also came to a halt. “Why are we stopping?” one of the men dared to ask.

“Fool! Take out your weapon!” Kuemon matched his order with his own actions, drawing his sword from his sash. Three other swords and a spear flashed in the red sunset as the other bandits brought their weapons to the ready.

The five men advanced cautiously. Kaze noted that they spread out without being told to, so that they would flank him on the right and left. He grudgingly acknowledged that Boss Kuemon had trained his men properly. Kaze was acutely alert to a sudden rush by any or all of the men, but for now he was content to let them come closer, as long as none of them threatened to get behind him.

“Be careful, Boss! He’s the samurai I told you about from the road to Higashi.” The boy, Hachiro, was tied up securely and sitting where he could view events. Kaze hadn’t gagged him because he wanted him to warn the bandits about who he was. He noted a slight hesitation in the steps of three of the men when Hachiro told them who he was. Good. That’s exactly what he wanted: a slight hesitation when the moment of truth came.

Kaze shifted the position of his sword, bringing it to the ready position, with both hands on the handle. This action most definitely caused three of the men to lag slightly behind Kuemon. One of the laggards was to the left of Kuemon, the other two were on the other wing. Kaze waited until the stragglers were a full step behind the other men, then he attacked.

The bandits were surprised by the explosive fury of Kaze’s attack.
His initial charge sliced the lead bandit across the shoulder and neck because he was too slow in getting his guard up, but instead of jousting with Kuemon, Kaze used the body of the cut bandit as a shield and immediately turned his attention to the two laggards on his left.

One bandit parried his blow, and the distinctive sound of two Japanese swords crossing clanged out in the camp. Instead of striking another blow at this bandit, Kaze took an arcing slice at the second one, the one with the spear, catching him off guard and cutting him through the side.

Kuemon had now stepped around the body of the dying lead bandit, but Kaze spun around and rushed at the bandit who had originally been behind Kuemon. This bandit blocked the first of Kaze’s blows, but he wasn’t able to block the second, and Kaze’s cut caught him across the shoulder and chest. Kaze had a flash of concern as his sword momentarily embedded itself in the shoulder bone of his latest victim, but he was able to wrench it free before Kuemon and the remaining bandit surrounded him.

Kaze nimbly stepped sideways out of the trap set by the two bandits. When he made a half turn, the two men were now standing to the left and right of him, instead of in front and behind. The two bandits hesitated. Kaze, who was now puffing from his expenditure of energy, welcomed the respite.

Kuemon glared at Kaze with a look of pure malevolence. He had wished for a demon to fight, and now he found one in human form. Kaze expected Kuemon to say something to him. Instead, he said to the other bandit, “If we attack together, we’ll kill him. He can’t handle both of us at the same time.”

Kuemon was wrong.

As the two bandits lunged forward, Kaze quickly stepped backward. The spot where the bandits were converging was now empty, and they both had to alter their path to attack Kaze. Instead of attacking him from each side, they were now both in front of him.

Kaze lifted his sword to protect his head and parried the blows of both men, dropping to one knee under the combined force. Kuemon
slipped his blade off Kaze’s sword and drew it back to take a cut at him. As he did, Kaze lunged forward, releasing the pressure on his blade and bringing it forward. The bandit’s blade, now released from Kaze’s sword, sliced through empty air as Kaze’s cut into the bandit’s belly. Hot blood and liquefied stomach contents sprayed out on Kaze as the bandit gave a great groan.

Kaze fell to the earth and rolled away from the dying bandit. With a shout of triumph, Kuemon rushed up to Kaze and chopped down at him. Kaze finished his roll just in time to catch Kuemon’s sword with his blade. Kaze kicked his foot out and caught Kuemon on the kneecap, sending him sprawling to the earth. Kaze lunged forward and stabbed Kuemon in the throat, his blade penetrating the larynx and driving deep into the ground. Kuemon clawed at the blade, cutting his hands and making a dreadful, gurgling sound as his blood spurted into the air from a cut artery. He was pinned to the ground by the sword, but he was still struggling to get up so he could deliver an equally mortal blow to Kaze.

Kaze kept his hand on the hilt of his sword, driving it forward so Kuemon could not get up. Kuemon’s exertions against the force of the blade grew rapidly weaker, until finally the bandit chief lay still.

Kaze was gasping for breath, but every time he drew in a ragged mouthful of air, it held the awful stench of blood and bile. It gagged him, not only with its physical effects, but with its association with the death and decay abhorrent to Shinto. It was a paradox that puzzled him. As a warrior, he was trained to kill or be killed, and he approached each battle with a coldness that sometimes frightened him. Yet, when it was over, he often had regrets at the consequences of his skill.

During the moments of the fight, nothing else existed for Kaze. He felt more alive than at any other time in his life, including when lovemaking. Every pebble under his foot was distinct and noticeable. Every slight glance by an opponent was memorized. Hard breathing by an adversary sounded like a trumpet. It meant his prey was getting
tired and would soon make mistakes or drop his guard. Kaze’s mind was wonderfully lucid, racing ahead two, three, or four moves. And the most important thing in the world was winning. It was the only goal, the only existence he acknowledged in a fight.

Afterward, when he had won, the rest of his humanity, which was crowded out by the pressure of the fight, returned. He looked around at the results of his skill and felt a wordless sadness. He understood why so many warriors became priests in their old age.

He had seen other warriors enjoy picnic lunches after a battle, sitting midst the blood, bodies, and hacked-off limbs. That was something unthinkable to Kaze. He enjoyed fighting, but he didn’t enjoy death.

He stood up and yanked his blade out of the neck of the dead bandit. He carefully wiped the blade off on the bandit’s clothes. There were a few groans from dying men and a peculiar snuffling noise. He looked around to identify the source of the strange noise and saw the youth crying.

Kaze walked out of the camp to the spring where he had made the dragon tracks. He stripped off his kimono and sat in the small pool of water. Its coldness surprised him, but he splashed the water against his body and face to erase the stench of blood. He got out of the pool and dunked his clothes in. As he squeezed his garment, a watery red stain spread in the pool. Kaze wrung out his kimono, and, holding on to it with one hand, he tossed it over his shoulder. Still gripping his sword in the other hand, Kaze casually strolled back to the bandit camp, naked except for his sandals and loincloth, as nonchalant as any man returning from a public bath.

When he got back to the camp, all the bandits were finally dead. The boy was still crying, and he watched Kaze approach him with wide, fearful eyes. Kaze strolled over to where the tied-up youth was lying, and he squatted down on his haunches. He studied the boy’s face. It was the broad, blunt face of a peasant. Tears streaked down his cheeks and a bubble of snot filled one nostril.

“What am I going to do with you?” Kaze asked.

The boy made no reply. He was either too fearful to talk or he didn’t understand Kaze’s question.

“I gave you your life once, back there on the road,” Kaze said. “Most people would have understood that the life of a bandit was not for them after that incident, but you immediately returned to this camp. Didn’t you understand that you’re not like them?”

“They never let me be one of them,” the boy blurted out. “I was only allowed to do stupid things, like guard the camp, guide people, run messages, or do the cooking and cleaning.”

“You had a chance to be one of them when you were supposed to stab me in the back, and you failed.”